Reconsidering sympathy in Elizabeth Gaskell's social-problem novels

Abstract

This thesis examines Elizabeth Gaskell’s social-problem novels and focuses on how they critique the capitalist system by valorizing sympathy. It argues that Gaskell deliberately positions her social-problem novels against the scientific discourse of political economy, by attaching importance to subjective perspectives instead of objective distance, feeling instead of reasoning, when representing socioeconomic realities. For this reason, this thesis departs from the common tendency to see Gaskell’s sympathy as a remedy for social ills; instead, it considers sympathy as a mode of critique that exposes the capitalist premise of a divided public and private sphere and explores how this division creates an increasingly apathetic and atomized society. While it is true that Gaskell valorizes sympathy in her social-problem novels, it is more than an appeal to readers’ sympathy. Her sympathy in fact represents a self-conscious attempt to complicate the apparent coherence and naturalness of dominant ideologies; as such, it implies a critical stance towards the status quo. The first chapter looks at Mary Barton (1848) and elaborates on Gaskell’s use of John Barton’s perspective to foreground the problems of class separation and to portray capitalism as an isolating social experience. This chapter argues that Gaskell uses sympathy not only as a moral critique of society’s hypocrisy but also to indicate that class divisions obstruct the natural flow of feeling between classes. Chapter Two examines North and South (1854) and argues that sympathy and its emphasis on mutual help problematizes capitalists’ moral code of laissez-faire non-interference and the distance it creates between individuals. This chapter also explores the implications that female philanthropy has on the novel’s capitalist system. In valorizing a “human interest” in workers’ lives, the practice of philanthropic visits prompts a shift in capitalism from an impersonal model of class relations towards a model of factory management based on actual personal contact. The third chapter deals with Gaskell’s representation of the fallen woman in Ruth (1853). This chapter contends that Gaskell uses sympathy as an argument against condemning the fallen woman to a narrative of irretrievable decline. This “downward-path” narrative, the novel argues, denies her the possibility of developing moral agency and the opportunity to redeem herself. Instead, the novel affirms the fallen woman’s personhood by advocating sympathy for her. Hence, sympathy works against the conventional, deterministic discourse on the fallen woman and introduces a new plot that charts her rise against capitalism.